Blood Promise (A SkinWalker Novel #4) (A DarkWorld SkinWalker Novel) (43 page)

I grabbed her other arm before she could disappear with him., "Make him tell us where Logan is."

The Titan look at me over her shoulder. "Lily knows," she said, and disappeared, taking Storm and the cage of lightning with her.

Or was that Ares and the cage of lightning?

Yeah, a total WTF moment.

 
Adrenaline buzzing again I shoved the door open and ran straight into a pacing Lily. "Can you remember where he kept you?"

Lily looked confused. She glanced at the open door, her eyes going round when she saw the office was empty. "Where--"

I raised a hand. "We don't have time, Lily. Focus. Where did Storm keep you."

She blinked, frowned. "Upstairs in his private apartment."

"I thought he had an apartment down here?"

"Yes, he does," she said. "But he also has one on the top floor of the building. Nobody is allowed to go up there. Only Storm has the access codes."

With Jess gone and Saleem still unreachable, I rang Mel. She'd helped me find Greer in the Graylands and she was the only other person I knew who could jump us inside the room without opening the door.

Mel arrived within minutes, her eyes dark with worry. She looked tired, her black hair almost lifeless, olive skin tinged green.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

She nodded and gave a small smile. "I'm fine. Just a whole lot going on." She tried to make me believe she was fine but the dark burgundy of her blouse just made her complexion all the more drained.

"Is Saleem okay? He hasn't been answering our calls and I'm starting to worry."

Mel shook her head. "He's ok. He had to go home to see his brother."

"Home as in Djinn-world home?" I asked, a little stunned.

Mel nodded and from the strain in her face I knew his absence was hard on her. There was more going on here than she was telling me, and I intended to ask. Later.

Right now, I led her upstairs and we confronted the locked door of Storm's apartment.
 

"It's made of steel," said Lily.

Mel nodded. I'll check first." She closed her eyes for a few moments, then opened it with a smile. "All clear. See you soon." Then she was gone and we listened as she fiddled with lock on the other side of the door.

She swung the door open and we entered, Lily hanging back. I suspected seeing this place again would be hard for her so I let her find her own pace.

A quick search revealed the place was empty. I turned to Lily. "Can you think where they would have taken him? Was there someplace else that you heard him mention?"

She frowned, her eyes going dark. Everyone's stress levels were sky-high and I worried that she'd been through too much to be of any use to us now.

"If you can't manage it, then don't push yourself too hard, okay?" I said, bending close so she would look me.

"I do remember Storm mentioning something about sending kids away to a special facility. I think they had something special planned for Logan." Lily frowned. "I wish I could remember more. All I know is that Storm would email the people at some facility to keep them updated on Logan's whereabouts."

"Did he actually talk about this in front of you?" I asked, wondering at Storm's carelessness. The only reason he'd do such a thing was if he considered her expendable. Thank
Ailuros
we'd gotten Lily out before Storm had killed her.

Lily was nodding. "Yes. It's like he wanted me to know everything he was doing. Like it was a game. Sometimes he'd keep me tied up in the front room, facing all the monitors on the wall so that I could see what was happening."

"Monitors," I asked.

Lily nodded. "Yes."
 

She headed to the wall on the left and rifled around on the top of the mantelpiece for something. Found a remote control. She pressed a button and a whirring sound emanated from the wall. Then a panel shifted and slid upwards, revealing a bank of monitors--all currently revealing live feeds.

One camera focused on a young woman, her red hair gleaming in the sunlight as she walked through a park, the evening sun giving her a strange glow. The happy, carefree expression on her face led me to believe that she had no idea that she was being watched.

So this was surveillance.

I had no time to waste wondering who the girl was and why Storm was watching her. Now, Logan was my only priority.

But, as I stared at the monitors my heart twisted.

The air in my lungs turned to ice as I stared at the screen. I could barely breathe as I stood there, frozen to the spot, tears surging to my eyes.

Now I knew why Anjelo hadn't been answering me. I glanced away to Lily, and was glad to see that she hadn't noticed that particular feed yet. I moved away, shifting around so that she would look at me and not the monitors.
 

I had my own feelings to deal with and I had to be selfish because dealing with Lily's horror as well as my own would take far too much time. Time we didn't have.

Mel came up to my side. "What do you need me to do?" She looked worried and I knew she understood how important the situation was.

"Just hold on for two seconds while I send a text."

I gave a short nod in Lily's direction and Mel seemed to understand. She slipped an arm around the girl, angling her away from the screens toward a sofa beside a picture window.

With Mel taking care of Lily, I concentrated on sending a text to myself, addressing it to Daniel Chou.

I typed his name and a brief message about getting together for drinks. I hoped that it would be enough.
 

A few seconds passed and I was beginning to wonder whether the ghost had been messing with me.

When my phone beeped, I exhaled softly in relief. A text from Daniel filled the screen. 'What do you need?'

'Can you scan your communication lines for any information on where Logan is being kept.'

'Logan, as in Logan Westin?'

'Yes,' I typed back annoyed with the back-and-forth. Why didn't he just do what he was told?

'One minute.'

With nothing to do but wait, I reluctantly shifted my gaze from the phone to the bank of screens, staring at Anjelo. He was being kept in a small room, strapped down to a metal table. The number of wires and tubes entering his body made my stomach turn. They were planning something for him, and I was afraid to consider what it could be.

As I watched, two orderly types entered the room, faces hidden as they closed in on Anjelo, who remained deathly still.

I watched in horror as they untied him and moved him onto a gurney then pushed him away.

What were they going to do with him?

Panic took over for a moment, and I could barely breathe. Was Anjelo going to die while I looked for Logan? And could I ever live with having made such a choice?

My cellphone beeped again, and when I looked at it my chest tightened.

'Located mentioned of Logan at the Omega HQ.'

'How did you find it so fast?' I asked, then tapped again. 'Floor?'

Daniel responded. 'I tapped into the GPS on his phone. Although it's not physically on, it still emits a low transmission, probably detected only by someone like me.'

Suddenly I was thanking
Ailuros
that I'd run into Daniel, however roving his eyes were.

I waved at Mel. "I know where he is."
 

She got to her feet, and Lily followed close on her heels.

"Let's get going then," said Mel. She glanced at the monitors, giving me a questioning look. She'd never met Anjelo so she wasn't aware of what I'd seen. But I didn't have to worry anymore, because Lily wouldn't see anything since he was no longer on the monitors.

Ailuros
knew where he was right now.

I sent off another text Daniel. 'Anything on the location of Anjelo Alvarez?'

Daniel came back almost immediately. 'Will check and let you know.'

I said my thanks and then nodded at Mel. "We need to get to Omega. They're keeping Logan in a facility within the building. Daniel couldn't be any more specific than that, so we'll have to do some searching."

Mel nodded. "You two wait here I will do a quick recon."

She closed eyes but didn't go anywhere. Her astral plane thing. Fascinating stuff.

But, all I could think of was Logan and what was happening to him. From the looks of what was going on with Angelo, I had no hope in hell of getting Logan back unhurt.

Mel, inhaled harshly and opened her eyes. The shock in her expression was enough to make me feel sick. I didn't want to ask her what was wrong.

"Come I found him."

Lily and I both took a hold of one of Mel's hands, and we disappeared.

Although my stomach lurched the tiniest bit, I was fine when we arrived in a darkened room. Light glowed from beneath the door to our right.

"Where are we?" asked Lily, her eyes glowing, her lynx surfacing to allow her to see in the dark.

"We're in the room next to the one where they're keeping Logan. See, over there." Mel pointed to our left at a window that gave on to the room next door.

I shifted closer and had to force myself to swallow a gasp of horror. We'd found Logan.

Dear Ailuros, what have they done to him?

Of all the things that I had wondered, I had not expected this.

"He's frozen." I said the words, but could barely believe it.

L
ILY
LET
OUT
A
STRANGLED
sound.

I knew how she felt, but I had stay in control.

We stared through the window into the silent room next door. The walls were lined with glass shelves containing dozens of bottles of liquids, probably chemicals. Countertops ran against the wall, circling the room, covered with paperwork, bottles, and all sorts of strange equipment.

Against the far wall, a strange emitted a blue glow, the fluorescent aqua light from within revealing Logan's shadowed features.

A layer of ice covered his skin, and frost crept up the glass windows of the cryo-pod.

"How the hell do we get him out of there?" I whispered.

"I had a look," said Mel. She shook her head. "It's very secure. It also has a self-destruct. We need to enter the correct code or the cryo-chamber will kill him."

I stared at Mel, shocked. I was filled with dread for Anjelo and now I stared at Logan, unsure if he'd make it out of this alive.

Could it get any worse?

"Kai?" Mel said. "What do we do?"

Who knew about codes? "There's someone that may be able to help us," I told her. "He's at my parent's place at Tukats. Bring him here as fast as possible. I think he may be the only person who can crack the code without tripping the self-destruct."

Mel nodded. "Be back in a sec."

It only took a few minutes to return, but they were minutes that dragged like eternity as I watched Logan's frosted face through the glass. Lily's pacing only amplified the feeling that my world was teetering.

Mel reappeared beside me, holding onto Baz whose expression indicated he was struggling not to throw up.

"Geez," he croaked. "How come that was worse than when Jess took us to--" He broke off when his gaze came to rest on Logan in the pod on the other side of the mirror. His eyes widened. "Can you get me in there now?" he asked Mel, not wasting a single second.

The tracker nodded and jumped Baz inside the room, landing right beside the cryo-pod. He'd certainly come prepared. He was already opening his laptop and connecting his device to the keypad on the pod with a cable he'd drawn from his rucksack.
 

He went to work and Mel disappeared, arriving beside me her expression pale and concerned. She held out her hand and took both me and Lily into the room to join Baz.
 

"Aren't we worried about sensors picking up our presence?" I asked.

Baz looked up from his screen. "Don't worry about that. I've disabled the sensors. They only had one at the door to detect people entering the room."